PROVIDENCE - Sales of previously foreclosed homes in the Providence-Fall River-New Bedford area dropped 22 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, RealtyTrac said Thursday.

Foreclosed homes made up 5.72 percent of all Providence area sales in the second quarter, down from 7.68 percent in the second quarter of 2011, the Irvine, Calid. Real estate data firm said.

The average sales price of a foreclosed home in the area was $149,000, representing a discount of 35 percent of homes sold outside of the foreclosure process. In the second quarter of last year, the average sale price of a foreclosed property was $156,000 and the discount was 32 percent.

There were 296 sales involving foreclosed properties, either bank owned or in some part of the foreclosure process, during the second quarter in the Providence area, compared with 381 in the second quarter of 2011.

Of those sales, 215 of them were in Rhode Island, which saw the share of total sales involving foreclosures drop to 5.65 percent in the second quarter from 7.93 percent in the second quarter of 2011.

Nationally, the number of foreclosure sales in the second quarter decreased 22 percent from the second quarter of 2011, while the number of short sales in the second quarter 18 percent year over year.

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